A Local Response to Oil Addiction
On Earth Day, in Sacramento, President Bush again described "a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world." Like any addiction, admitting to the problem is the beginning of recovery. What do we do next, as a society, to kick this addiction?
It makes sense to begin with the largest consumer. At 40.7%, cars, pick-ups and SUVs are far and away the single largest consumer of oil in this country. By way of comparison, large transport trucks are next at 12.7% and heating oil is at 4.9% (C. Komanoff, from Department of Energy statistics). Our addiction to oil is, to a large degree, an addiction to cars.
The President seems to be aware of this, and calls for the use of "better batteries for hybrid and electric cars and in pollution-free cars that run on hydrogen." Unfortunately, there are no cars that run on hydrogen. Hydrogen fuel cells are not an energy source but a way to store energy. And the energy to separate the hydrogen from water and place it in the fuel cells will come from where? The President seems a bit vague on this point. This is the classic behavior of an addict, even a self professed one.
On April 25, 2007, a Sentinel editorial caught the Democrats exhibiting another sign of addiction—looking for a scapegoat, in this case big oil. I don't think we should waste our time with either fancy batteries or finger pointing. I know it's complicated compared to generating hydrogen fuel cells with nuclear reactors, but maybe we should, you know, drive less. If each household, for example, got rid of one car and drove the other one slightly more, its total miles driven would be reduced by forty percent—enough to eliminate the need for the violence around importing Mid-East oil. What would that look like, on a societal level?
Getting rid of one car would reduce the expenses of your average household by 7.5% (derived from National Highway statistics). These savings could help make the transition a positive one. Some families could use the savings to work less and walk their children to school. Others could use the extra money to move to within walking or biking distance of where they work, even if that meant paying 22.5% more on housing (housing represents 1/3 of each household expenses).
Getting rid of one car per household would free up 385 million dollars, annually, in Santa Cruz County (91,139 cars multiplied by $4,227.00 per vehicle—the amount, according to a pamphlet put out by the County's Transportation Commision, our society spends on each car). With that kind of wealth we could build a 31-mile bike trail every year, run trains to Watsonville every hour, make major inroads in the cost of housing, and still pay less in taxes.
Or forget economics and walk down a typical street, noting how much space is taken up by cars: the street itself, outdoor and indoor parking, auto supply shops and gas stations. North American cities devote 30 to 60 percent of their urban areas to roads and parking alone (Rodrgue, "The Geography of Transport Systems"). Keeping in mind that each car in Santa Cruz is allocated 3 to 4 parking spaces—at least one for home, work, and shopping—imagine taking 275,417 parking spaces out and using that space for housing, for parks, for schools, for commerce that generates tax money. To a large degree, it is the car itself that makes everything so far away that we feel compelled to drive to it.
Once we think about it, each of us can identify cities that are more auto-centric than less. Cities like Santa Cruz have refused to use space and money on expanding infrastructure to cater to cars. As a result these cities end up with dense downtowns, public transportation, infill housing, clustered businesses, and greenbelts. This kind of planning further encourages the use of feet and bicycles, creating an upward spiral towards a livable city, a trend occurring all over the country. Urban rail systems are on the rise in such unlikely places as San Jose and Los Angeles. Ivy League campuses are closing their cores to automobiles and, in a recent survey of members of the American Automobile Association, 89% of their members favor increasing subsidies for public transportation.
Here in Santa Cruz County our public debate on widening Highway One is, at heart, about whether to expand the amount of space and resources we as a county devote to car infrastructure. In a society as addicted to oil as ours, saying no to this kind of development is like saying no to someone passing around a cigarette, or a syringe. It's not an easy thing to do, and can be painful in the short term, before the above mentioned positive effects of reducing driving help to counteract our dependency.
Nevertheless, after knocking on thousands of doors in all parts of the county as part of the Campaign for Sensible Transportation, en ingles y espanol, I find that most county residents are not happy with the amount that we are forced to drive by our current transportation system. We move around more than we really want to, and work more than we want to in order to pay for it. The difficult part for people seems to be imagining that society could be organized differently. This is a classic sign of addiction. How can I possibly be happy, the marijuana addict thinks, without waking up and smoking? How can I get my kids to school, and both of us to work, without our cars?
According to long time activist and state Senator Tom Hayden "change begins in the individual lives of countless people when they no longer accept existing conditions as inevitable." Though not an easy task, this kind of change is the only true antidote to our addition to oil. President Bush has taken the first step. The next one is up to us: imagine a world with fewer cars.
Micah Posner
Director
People Power